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Orchestra chief to leave Japan, bound for Konstanz

( dpa ) - Florian Riem, currently deputy general manager of the Orchestra Ensemble in Kanazawa, Japan, has been hired to run a top orchestra in Germany, officials in Konstanz said Friday.

Riem, 39, had been the city's second choice by only a narrow margin for the post as chief executive of the South-West German Philharmonic Orchestra.

The post was initially awarded to Benedikt Poensgen, 40, head of the Handel Festival in Goettingen, central Germany, but he was then persuaded to stay there.

Faced with a last-minute gap, the city council of Konstanz, on the shores of cross-border Lake Constance, voted unanimously to offer the post to the Japanese-based German instead.

Riem is a graduate of the Richard Strauss Music School in Munich who moved to the United States to study cello at Indiana University in Bloomington und the University of Maryland.

He was then chief executive of the Kremata Baltica chamber orchestra and managed US soprano Jessye Norman. He has been in Kanazawa since 2005.The goal, Israel said, it to step up the pressure on the militants who are firing the rockets. But human rights groups have condemned the move as collective punishment.

Egypt's decision to re-close the border after the two-day Palestinian shopping spree in its towns near Gaza followed pressure from the United States and Israel, which is concerned that weapons, militants and cash for radical factions crossed over freely along with the scarce goods Gazans have been stocking up on.

The Israeli government also issued a travel warning to Israelis in the Sinai, saying Palestinian militants may use the open border to abduct Israeli civilians or off-duty soldiers on holiday in the Egyptian peninsula and take them to Gaza.

Friday, meanwhile, was the second anniversary since Hamas unexpected victory over Abbas' secular Fatah in parliamentary elections, which has since led to a relentless power-struggle that culminated in the radical Islamic movement's Gaza take-over in June.